I saw Lenard’s post Best Pocket Tool, and thought I’d put in my opinion.
I’m a dedicated Victorinox Super Tinker or Deluxe Tinker guy. My most used tool is actually the scissors, so that is a must for me.
I work in an office and find Leatherman tools to be too big and bulky to ride in a pocket. If I’m carrying a Leatherman, it’s in a belt sheath on a sturdy jeans belt. I wanted to like the K2, but for a $100 knive, I wanted a better quality of blade steel.
What I have come to carry most of the time is a utility blade multi-tool.
There are a number on the market grom high end EDC makers, but I can’t justify the price.
My go-to are the Outdoor Edge Slidewinder and the Milwaukee Fastback.
Both have a utility blade, flat head, philips head, and bottle opener.
As you can see, the Slidewinder is tiny, it would make a good money clip (both have pocket clips).
Even if I’m carrying a larger knife, like a Spyderco, I’ll carry the Slidewinder because it’s nice to not worry about dulling an edge cutting open cardboard boxes and Amazon packages.
The Fastback is more of s traditional utility knife. It fits a double ended 1/4 inch driver bit, which is easily replaced at and hardware store. It also carries a spare blade.
The only downside to the Slidewinder is that changing the blade requires a T6 Torx. But it makes up for it in convenient size.
One other tool I’ve come to like is the Havalon Evolve multi-tool.
Its about the size of the Leatherman Skeketool, but I like it more.
It uses replaceable scaple blades, like other Havalon knives.
It also uses 1/4 inch standard bits, and carries a flat and philips on board.
As a tool designed for hunters, it has a skinning hook. I’m not a hunter, so I modified my tool my creating a tungsten carbide tip glass breaker that fits into the 1/4 inch driver socket. The skinning hook also makes a great seat belt cutter, so combined with the glass breaker, I turned ot into a self rescue tool.
The blade exchange works well.
Since the scaple blades and factory Leatherman blades are both 420 stainless, I’d rather just toss a replacement blade instead of sharpening a mediocre steel blade.
This is what I tend to carry, to each his own.
No universally ideal tool for me; I tend to switch between a Leatherman, a Gerber and a Schrade,.or just the mini tool kit I keep in my desk, depending on what I’m intending to do that day. And I fly enough that I don’t “automatically” drop one in the pocket / on the belt; I got tired of gifting them to random TSA employees.
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I must say, as I use the pliers more than I might have guessed, that I really like models with a spring-opener for the jaws. It makes tightening and loosening fittings considerably less irritating, especially in a place with a constrained swing angle.
I agree, I don’t think there is one tool to rule them all. I have many. These are the tools that make up 80% of my EDC. The ones that are in my pocket from when I leave the house in the morning to go to work, until i get home at night. This is what I have found optimal for the majority of the time, which is the best anything can do.
I glanced over the series Interesting how similar some of our choices are. I’ve carried a Victorinox Deluxe Tinker for a long time. And, yes, my most used tool is the scissors. A knife like the Tinker does’t “spook the end users”.
Then last year I picked up a Trekker. Wish it had scissors, probably won’t use the wood saw much. The blade lock is neat — the first liner lock I’ve seen that actually seems secure.
It’s a left handed lock too! It locks opposite most knives.
You do not need a torx to change the blade in a slide winder. I own one; I know.
Extend the blade, continue to hold down the orange button, remove the blade. Simple…
I think I got my Leatherman Free K2 for like $60, at nearly $100 I understand that.
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Milwaukee also makes a knife blade version of the fastback; I was very close to buying one before I shifted gears.
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No free lunch as they say! There is definitely always a compromise to be made picking your EDC tools!
No free lunch as they say! There is definitely always a compromise to be made picking your EDC tools!
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No joke there! I look at my EDC tool selection the same way I look at carrying a handgun:
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If you knew you were going into trouble, you’d take a long gun, right? Preferably with a large magazine capacity? But carrying a long gun all the time is usually unnecessary, plus it’s a pain in the neck and it “scares the straights”, so you don’t do that day-to-day. You compromise and carry a handgun instead; you can have it on you and it will suffice to cover most of your self-defense needs.
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Likewise, if you knew you were going to need a ratcheting socket set and an impact driver with full bit set, you’d carry them; if your job required it you’d probably have a nice cart, case, or tote for them. But the vast majority of the time you don’t need all that, so it’s an unnecessary pain in the neck to lug around all the time. So you compromise and carry small tools that are good for most things you might come across. They’re not as easy to use as a purpose-built tool, but they’re not intended to be; they’re intended to be something to keep on you and cover most of your needs when you’re away from your primary tools.
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Looking at it that way slightly changes the calculus. I stopped trying to find the perfect EDC tool and just find one that’s “good enough” to handle most small tasks while I’m away from home or office (where I have access to purpose-built, dedicated tools).
PRECISELY!
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I came to much the same conclusion, there won’t be a perfect but we seek as close as we can get. I think about the only perfect EDC would be a bag of holding lol.
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I find many EDC videos and gadgets pics steer people into the survival items area. That’s not really actually very helpful for most people’s daily lives. Who needs a fishing kit, fire starter, compass, cable saw, etc on their person or in their bag when they drive 15 minutes to work 5 days a week and ride a desk while they are there? Pretty much no one! Once you figure out what you actually need and have a realistic picture of what you might encounter, you can have multiple sets of EDC items for the tasks and activities you are doing and it becomes basically effortless to delegate items to the bag or car. Kind of a backpacking attitude in that sense; get rid of the extraneous stuff to save weight and go for multipurpose.
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I will not however, ever ever ever dissuade you from buying some gear or gadget because its cool 🙂 I might be a prime offender there….
RE: Skinning hooks / “Gut hooks”: They’re great for opening blister packed items, too. Hook it into any opening (the hole they use to hang it on a display works for this) and pull it across.
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Best part of that is, if you lose control of it, you’re pulling, not pushing, so you’re leading with your elbow instead of a live blade.
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I’m not much of a hunter (yet; I plan on getting into it), so opening blister packs is the most common use I have for a gut hook. 🙂